Claiborne County officials prepare to leave a home in Port Gibson, Miss., where authorities were investigating the hanging death of a black man in the neighboring woods, Thursday, March 19, 2015. The man has not been identified.

PORT GIBSON, Miss. — Federal and state authorities are investigating the hanging death of a black man in Mississippi who had been missing for more than two weeks, the FBI said Thursday.

The investigation involves the FBI, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney’s office. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is also involved.

The man was last seen March 2 and was reported missing by his family days later, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jason Pack said in a statement. Pack says the cause of death has not been determined, and authorities aren’t sure if it’s a homicide or a suicide.

Jim Walker, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, told The Associated Press that the body was found by the department’s officers while they were searching for 54-year-old Otis Byrd of Port Gibson.

Walker said that about 25 minutes after the officers started the search, they found the body hanging in the woods about 200 yards from Byrd’s house.

None of the authorities has positively identified the body that was found as Byrd’s, however. Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas Sr. said a positive identification will not be available until the completion of an autopsy, which he said also should help determine whether the death was a homicide or a suicide. Lucas said the body has been sent to the state Crime Lab in Jackson. He said the body was found hanging by a bedsheet.

Walker said the body had “obvious signs” of decomposition, indicating it had been hanging there for more than one day.

Johnie Baker, 87, owns the land where the body was found.

Baker, who did not accompany authorities on the search, described it as an area of pecan and black walnut trees, frequented by hunters and home to several wild hogs.

It is time to start rounding up the enemies of the US Bill of Rights in Washington DC and execute them for treason.

PUNKROCKER

If you publish something you know is classified, you should go to jail. Freedom of speech should also mean revealing your sources and not hide behind them.

Krishna E. Bera

im curious why there hasnt been attempt to overturn the espionage act as unconstitutional in the courts, and also why there isnt a movement to amend the espionage act precisely to protect press freedom and whistleblowers.

tapatio

The Espionage Act is so broad that it protects crimes committed by the US government or any US government official with NO requirement for proof that exposing those crimes endangers the security of this country – as has been proven in the false imprisonment of Chelsea Manning, the persecution of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and many others.

These people did NOTHING to harm national security – their ONLY “crime” was exposure of the crimes of those who control Washington.

Resource exploitation, military occupation and so-called “anti-terror” efforts led by Western countries are destabilizing several countries in Africa, leading to widespread starvation and sickness for millions of people. Famine has become a daily fact of life for many in Somalia, South Sudan and elsewhere in Africa.

Iraqi agriculture expert Dr. Nakd Altameemi joins Mnar Muhawesh on ‘Behind the Headline’ to discuss the devastating toll that war, sanctions and Western corporations have had on Iraq’s centuries-old agricultural traditions.

Rania Khalek, an independent journalist who has been blacklisted for her recent reports on Syria, joins Mnar Muhawesh on ‘Behind the Headline’ to discuss the silencing of journalists who oppose the mainstream media’s pro-war agenda.

As an unprecedented wave of outrage swells against the Trump administration, Mnar Muhawesh, host of ‘Behind the Headline,’ wonders why people weren’t more outraged with Obama’s policies on mass surveillance, whistleblowers, and war.